As the value and use of information continues to increase, individuals and businesses seek additional ways to process and store information. One option available to users is information handling systems. An information handling system generally processes, compiles, stores, and/or communicates information or data for business, personal, or other purposes thereby allowing users to take advantage of the value of the information. Because technology and information handling needs and requirements vary between different users or applications, information handling systems may also vary regarding what information is handled, how the information is handled, how much information is processed, stored, or communicated, and how quickly and efficiently the information may be processed, stored, or communicated. The variations in information handling systems allow for information handling systems to be general or configured for a specific user or specific use such as financial transaction processing, airline reservations, enterprise data storage, or global communications. In addition, information handling systems may include a variety of hardware and software components that may be configured to process, store, and communicate information and may include one or more computer systems, data storage systems, and networking systems.
As an important standards organization, IEEE (Institute of Electrical & Electronics Engineers) organizes groups of industry members to pursue development of various information handling system technologies. Standardization of a technology by IEEE typically results in guidelines by which manufacturers, programmers, and other entities involved with device production must comply in order to make their products compatible, interoperable, or otherwise cooperative. Acting in its standards producing capacity, IEEE has established a myriad of guidelines for implementing Gigabit Ethernet (IEEE 802.3ab).
Portable information handling systems are commonly employed as desktop replacements with the use of port replicators or docking stations. Current port replicating and docking station technology typically replaces one or more of the external ports of the portable system with a respective port on the port replicator or docking station. While port replication has generally simplified connectivity and enhanced portability of portable information handling systems, these advances have given rise to other issues.
As mentioned above, IEEE has defined various boundaries to which a Gigabit Ethernet or IEEE 802.3ab compliant device or program must conform. In many conventional portable information handling systems, addition of a multiplexer (or mux) to switch communications, such as Ethernet network communications, from one port to another port typically disturbs one or more electrical characteristics of the communication transmission lines and often results in transmission line return loss failures. In addition, use of an Ethernet switching device for port control may also introduce parasitic capacitance and prevent devices from complying with relevant IEEE specifications.
A number of conventional portable information handling system, port replicator and docking station designs generally ignore transmission line return loss failures as well as other aspects of non-compliance and instead rely on Bit Error Rate to achieve some measure of communication reliability. Consequently, many of these designs violate IEEE 802.3ab specifications and are, therefore, not IEEE compliant. While non-compliance may be a design failure that casual users of portable information handling systems can overcome, enterprise or power users typically demand the reliability and integrity of full IEEE compliance in their information handling system wares.